Over 100 illegal migrants reached Britain by boat on Tuesday, as figures from the Home Office revealed that less than one per cent of illegal aliens have been prosecuted over the past five years.
The migrant crisis in the English Channel shows no signs of abating, as seven boats carrying 113 illegals were brought to land at the Port of Dover on Tuesday.
A further four boats carrying 72 people being stopped by French authorities, the BBC’s Simon Jones reported.
So far this year, over 1,500 migrants have been recorded to have reached British shores. Theoretically, if crossings continue as they have, the year could be on pace to see 25,000 migrants cross the Channel from France illegally, three times as many reached in the year before the UK officially left the European Union.
The latest crossings come as figures from the Home Office revealed that only an average of 71 out of 17,000, or 0.4 per cent, illegal migrants detected by Britain’s Border Force have been prosecuted since 2016/17.
The Home Office figures, which were uncovered by Lord Green of the Migration Watch think tank, showed that there were also less the 50 convictions for overstayed visas or illegal entry during the same time period. The mass migration-sceptic think tank compared to the 114,000 convictions of Britons for failing to pay their TV licence fee in 2019.
The chairman of Migration Watch UK, Alp Mehmet told the Daily Telegraph: “While 100,000 people were convicted for failure to pay the TV licence, the latest full-year (2020-21) figure for convictions for illegal entry or overstaying was 48.
“If that is an indication of where the Government’s priorities lie, no wonder they continue to fail to deal with the massive problem of illegal immigration.”
While the Home Office does not publish the total number of illegal aliens in the country, recent estimates conducted by Pew research claimed that as many as 1.2 million may be in the country clandestinely.
In December, Breitbart London reported that the Home Office has lost count of at least 37,000 migrants after they skipped bail or fled detention centres into the country. Deportations have also fallen dramatically, with 79 per cent fewer migrants deported in 2020.
In March, Conservative MP Sir Edward Leigh called upon Home Secretary Priti Patel to adopt an Australian-style turn back the boats approach to the growing crisis, saying that the UK’s “present asylum is a complete joke.”
There are an estimated 56,000 supposed asylum seekers in the United Kingdom, the vast number of whom are deemed ineligible for asylum by the government.
Home Secretary Priti Patel announced a series of proposals last month to mend the country’s “broken” asylum system, including blocking migrants who enter the country illegally from obtaining citizenship or from applying for leave to remain status.
However, there has been little indication that the UK will adopt a unilateral approach in preventing migrants from crossing the Channel from France.
Patel has revealed that the Home Office is expecting to spend some £1.3billion of the British taxpayer’s money on the asylum system this year, alone, up from approximately £1 billion last year.
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